Recruiting Radio Shatters Myths

But navel-gazing bloggers are drunk on dreams.

Yesterday morning I received an email from Bull Doza complaining about this line.

"Bull Doza published a bunch of comments from names in the Recruitosphere and the gullible think that these deliver some sort of meaningful message."

Bull is right. I should have phrased it like this.

"Bull Doza published a bunch of comments about recruiting blogs that are having a hypnotic effect on people who should know better."

If you listen to my recent historic radio show, you'll see that this is absolutely true.

Dave Manaster, Harry W Joiner, Steve Rothberg, Jay-Dee Jason Davis, Laurence Larry Haughton and, oh yeah, Carlton The Restaurant Doorman called in.

All of them had very interesting things to say. But, in the end, they had some sort of zombie-like attraction to the idea that recruiting blogs are a big deal in the recruiting business as a whole -- even though everything they said proved that was wrong.

I'll show you what I mean with quotes from the cheerleaders on Bully's own blog.

But, first, let's review the questions that have brought Six Degrees From Dave so much recent attention. (Please note: I've removed half the words).

1. Give us examples of blogs influencing product development.

This is a poorly worded question as it has nothing to do with recruiting blogs. And that's reflected in the answers which include RSS and widgets. What did recruiting blogs have to do with their development? Nothing.

2. Give us examples of recruiting blogs creating viral marketing. (Note that "viral" suggests something big like an epidemic).

3. How have blogs become an industry partner?

Again, no focus on recruiting blogs so many of the answers are bound to be irrelevant. And what is an industry partner anyway?

Neal Bruce, The Monster.
"Blogs are at early stages, but I fully expect Blogger influence to increase over time." Translation: they aren't big now.

Papa John Sumser:
Everyone knows I like Papa. But he's all over the place on this one. Finally, however, he gets to the money line. "The rest of the story involves the (much slower) migration of actual recruiting into the blogs." Translation: It isn't happening.

Mr 5 O'Clock, (Russell Glass)
"As important influencers in the recruiting industry, bloggers are critically important..... In total, they have sent many dozens to ZoomInfo through their passion for our product. " Dozens. Imagine that!

Mattay Martone
Do blogs play a major role in viral marketing? Answer: "We haven’t seen much yet."

CM Russell
"The smart recruiters/hr pros are using blogs to reach candidates on a more human level. I cite 2 bloggers as example, Dennis Smith, Staffing Manager, Engineering at T-Mobile who writes the blog wirelessjobs.com and Martin Burns of ZoomInfo."

Two examples. That's not much, is it? And you can't really come up with more than you can count on two hands.

Vin Dieselevey, (Steve Levy)
Deez provides the only semi-substantial claim in the series so far. "A few deftly placed blog posts on BountyJobs by yours truly increased recruiter sign up by roughly 50%."

But I need details. When we first mention any new software on the blogs they get a flurry of hits which immediately disappears.

Also, Deez doesn't provide any indication that blogs are a big part of recruiting. And he tries to muddy the waters by claiming that "the ERE groups are in fact blogs." Right. And so are newspapers that publish online. Thanks Deez. We needed that.

Dave Lefkow
"Blogs are at times a bit too isolationist or even elitist." Get the message? They stand apart from the mainstream.

Glenn Gutmacher
The G-Man argues that blogs influence people like Shally who then teach these ideas to companies for a fee.

"If Gerry, John, Lou, Peter, Shally or somebody does a paid webinar on recruiting topic X, the attendees will say, “hey, let’s give this a shot to revise our operational model.”.... where did those people get their ideas for their webinars/books/consulting reports....They talk to people and get ideas from places INCLUDING blogs.

So what do I hear here? Recruiting blogs have no direct role in the industry. They seem to involve a small number of people who send representatives to the larger world. No specifics are given. And I suspect that Shally will stop talking to Glenn when he reads this because he thinks the traffic in ideas goes the other way, from him to the blogs.

Harry Joiner, The Marketing Headhunter
"No Blog, No Sale.
The primary modern procurement process for executive search seems to be:
a.) Receive incoming cold call voice mail from recruiter,
b.) Google recruiter to see if they’re for real,
c.) Check out recruiter’s blog from Google results, and then
d.) Return call of recruiter if there’s a need and the recruiter appears to be any good"

I respect Harry. I learn from him. But this might be the clearest example of a smart guy gone wrong. How can blogs be part of the primary procurement process if so few firms have them?

On my historic radio show, Harry qualified this as the way it's going to be in the future. And I reminded the world of another prediction. Well, it should have happened, he said.

Two More
I know from Bull himself that there are a couple more testimonies that have not been published. And their answers about recruiting blogs are both negative.

Conclusion: Resistance is Futile
So, now you know what's what. But it won't make any difference. These guys are addicted to these self-promoting notions like kids who adopt a political philosophy during their idealistic youth and have trouble shaking it no matter how often events prove them wrong.

Comments

[laurence haughton]

"They had some sort of zombie-like attraction to the idea that recruiting blogs are a big deal in the recruiting business as a whole -- even though everything they said proved that was wrong."

Ouch... that's going to leave a mark.

[Harry Joiner]

Question: "How can blogs be part of the primary procurement process if so few firms have them?"

Answer: "Because recruiting firms are still in denial."

Just because my competitors are Luddites doesn't mean I'm on the wrong track. I'm an Early Adopter of a future-Mainstream Technology.

See http://www.parkerhill.com/Summary%20of%20Crossing%20the%20Chasm.pdf

[Amybeth Hale]

You’re quite an instigator! :) Just wanted to share my thoughts on your topic:

Recruiting blogs seem to influence those who bother reading them, which seem to be mostly others who write them. So we seem to feed off each other. A couple of my friends and former colleagues read mine but only because I tooted my own horn and sent them a link to it.

I liked what Steve R. said about putting all your eggs in one basket. Anyone who would solely rely on a blog for getting the word out is going to shoot themselves in the foot, just as if a brick and mortar establishment were only to run ads in the local newspaper or only ran one TV ad.

Dave M. had a lot of good stuff to say and I enjoyed hearing what he talked about. I agree with him that internal censorship will water down the content of anything that might be written on a blog and thus make it a bit vanilla to readers. You can’t be completely honest about anything if you’re worried about getting canned for saying something. He also mentioned spheres of influence and I agree with this as well. Certain groups of people would seem to gravitate toward blogging while others will not. Some people see no use in them but that doesn’t mean they are useless. It would seem to be a matter of perception. You perceive that they do not influence, which I agree with to a certain degree. They don’t influence those who see no use in them.

We have a brand new recruiting franchise owner who is a pretty young guy. He approached me for some ideas on how he could learn more about his industry. I suggested that he start a blog focused on his industry and couple that with some professional networking. I told him to promote his blog within his network and reach out to the players in his industry. I’ve tried to help him with his content and he’s had some great conversations with people in his industry as a result of aggressive networking. He’s even gotten a couple of job orders from these conversations. Do I think this is the norm? Absolutely not. But he’s excited!

I think there’s definitely a future in it. Take ecommerce for example, which I heard mentioned. 15 years ago no one would have given it a second thought as a way to do business. But check this out: Of the top 500 e-tailers in 2006,

142 are owned by store-based retail chains
88 by catalog and direct-marketing firms
45 by consumer branded manufacturers
225 by the so-called pure plays or web-only retailers

Brick and mortar retail companies have obviously discovered the importance of having an online presence to market and influence. I don’t think that other businesses, including recruiting, will be far behind on jumping aboard this bandwagon.

I don’t claim to be an expert on any of this stuff by any stretch of the imagination. I’m simply an interested observer and occasional contributor. I’ve personally gotten a lot out of blogging and the ones that I read. I agree that the majority of recruiters out there don’t read them and don’t see them as a huge influence right now. Someone mentioned that those like Fordyce don’t bother blogging because they are busy making placements. But I definitely think this will grow to be a bigger influence in the future. As a colleague mentioned to me this morning, “…just takes time. Not everyone drove a car, used a phone or had a PC the first 5 years of existence.”

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts!

[Jobmatchbox]

Ok. So what do you propose people do about this?

Here are a couple of suggestions:

First, recruiting blogs can help job hunters, not just complain about them.

Second, blogs can get the message to job boards, hiring teams, etc. that change is needed. On good days, the blogs will actually spell out how to make changes so that the job boards don’t have to hire marketing teams or consulting firms that will cost them big bucks.

[Recruiting Animal]

Dude, Recruiting blogs help job hunters even as they complain about them. If I tell someone not to put garbage in his resume and tell him exactly what the garbage is, that's great advice. If you don't know this you haven't read many blogs.

Re your other remark: There's been a million articles and blog postings about blogging already. And there will be a million more.